I enjoy imagining forest ghosts in their natural habitat, but so far I've portrayed them almost always half-hidden, still, wary and observing only. Now I've started drawing them in relaxed, playful poses. I'm calling that a progress (and also my subconscious is demanding more rest, I guess ;P)

THE INSPIRATION AND STORY BEHIND TODAY'S GHOST

Where do the forest ghosts stay at night? Do they have tiny houses scarced around the forest or do they sleep in some hidings of natural origin?

This one is staying inside the tree for the night. Nights in the forest can be very dark. In the background of my drawings you can see the ever-present darkness, lit with some sources of light, like trees, stars etc. This reminds me of the impression I have when thinking of dreams- like they're void of light and there's an underlying darkness in them, despite the presence of spot light. A situation that is actually typical for this universe, right?

This drawing wasn't easy to finish. I fought with my markers and pens but the result wasn't satisfactory. I even thought that this poor forest ghost may become a project to be forgotten and to be put somewhere deep in a desk drawer.

The texture was really bad, as the medium (stock paper) hasn't got a very good quality and I wasn't patient enough to craft beautiful, organized lines in the trunk of the tree. Luckily, in GIMP I trust, so I decided to treat my little buddy digitally. I found the final result to be quite promising. There is this faint touch of realism in the drawing, that feels mysterious, enticing... I'm encouraged even more to strive for a proper digital art education :)

Fortunately, some good folks of Steem Artists Discord Channel have recommended me the Design Cinema Youtube Channel as a great source of knowledge. I haven't had a chance to look into their tutorials yet, but I will probably have time at the end of April for that.

I'm very curious, how have your beginnings with digital art looked?

And now to tell something about the process of drawing :)

STAGES OF ARTWORK

First, there was a sketchy sketch-sketch with a pencil!

Then there was redrawing with pen and correcting some of the imbalances in the tree's outline :)

Next, there was an initial shading (the dot technique is called stippling) and textures!

This was the point, where shading and texturing intensified... The tree bark sure looked strange at this point.
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And it was at this stage that I realized I won't be able to obtain any better result with markers and pen only. I was too disorganized and undisciplined with my pen and the texture in the tree bark looked really fatal to me. I decided to treat my drawing with some GIMP tools.

After desaturation of the scan in GIMP and using a wide range of sizes, shapes and opacity levels of a brush tool, I managed to achieve the intensity, texture and depth that wouldn't be possible to obtain with traditional methods in this case.

And that's all, folks! This sticker was supposed to look scary, but I don't think that the ghost looks very afraid.

STEP BY STEP GIF

And here's a gif animation showing the process behind the final result.

Your approval means a lot to me, @jungwatercolor! Thank you so much for your kind support! I love your art and your talent so I can really appreciate that :) BTW I love your bunny and dog, from now on I'm going to follow you more closely, this was my intention from the first time I followed you but sometimes it's hard to stay organized and focused on Steemit...
Anyway, it's great to hear from you and I look forward to follow closely your beautiful artwork, Dunja.
Love,
Klaudia

Yes, I know what you mean with keeping up with following here, have the same problem. If I miss someone I like and hadn't upvoted something truly good. But there is also life out of Steemit so we should not forget that either @shinyforest :)
And you are doing great art as I said so it's mine pleasure to enjoy in it :)

Thank you so much @byn, I really appreciate your kind support. It's so wonderful how Steemit allows us to continue creating and learning new skills, and big part of how it helps me are friendly words of support like yours. I'm very happy that you like the ghosts, they like you very much too <3

Oh, I love this little guy! Wishing him a peaceful night sleep in his tree <3
I am sure you're gonna ace digital art and probably an online course would be enough, as you already have the talent & skills <3
I first studied Photoshop back in my fashion design studies, it was so long ago, it was Photoshop 4 back then ;D We learned how to creat patterns and textures for our fabrics and then placed them into our scanned designs. Since then, Photoshop and I grew together and though there are always new features & possibilities to learn, it comes so naturally, that instructions are no longer needed ;) I then taught myself also Illustrator and InDesign and only when I cannot find the option that I'm looking for, I search online for the solution. These kind of programs are usually very easy to use, so I am positive you will do great!

Thank you dear Shlomit for such kind words and for sharing your experience, it's very uplifting! I'm sure that with Steemit I will be able to move on with this topic, I think that the first thing I should do is to decide what to draw and then just execute the idea :P Just start. I would love to see your projects of fabrics! Sounds very interesting!
Thank you <3
Love,
Klaudia